How to Clean A Garage in Under Two Months

For those not familiar with my Dusting Off My Parachute Facebook Group, each day we have a themed micro-resolution and Friday is F-It Friday, where the F can stand for Fix, as in, I’m going to fix that hole in the wall that has been bugging me for the past seven years. The F can also stand for the more traditional F-word, and that’s when we just say F-It and give ourselves permission to permanently delete something off of our to-do list without actually doing it, because, well….F-it.
Today’s F-It Friday is brought to you by: My Garage. The F lies somewhere between the two examples above, in that I finally said, F-It, I’m finally going to Fix it before someone gets injured.

I forgot to take a photo to truly capture the depth and breadth of the donation mountain that had taken over, so I borrowed this one from the internet.

Actually, our garage is pretty organized around the perimeter, it’s the center of the garage that has become overloaded with:

Hoses, stored for the winter

Boxes from a dozen different appliances, we keep “just in case something happens and we need to return it.”

Piles of clothes and toys to donate or sell.

Broken lawn decor.

Outdoor cushions in various stages of being destroyed by the dog.

A rug covered by muddy dog paw prints that I need to have the space to lie flat and clean, but I can’t because there’s a pile of stuff in the middle of the garage.

Every time I look at it, I get so overwhelmed that I find any and every excuse to ignore it.

“I can’t sell the Playmobil castle, because it’s missing one of the knights.”

“I need to look up that doll on Ebay, because what if I donate it and it’s worth $100?”

So I just back out of there, pretending I didn’t actually need the thing that’s too dangerous to reach since it’s located on the other side of Mt. Garage.

Unfortunately, I’m running out of time for excuses. Two years ago my husband put a down payment on a new Tesla and it is supposed to be ready in the next couple of months. Since the Tesla is an electric car which needs to be plugged in, for the first time in the eight years in our house, we will actually need to be able to park a car in the garage.

For some reason, he doesn’t like my idea of parking on top of the pile, so it’s time to address the elephant (or the pile the size of an elephant) in the room.

Since the hardest part for me is dealing with the overwhelming thought of having to do it all, I’ve decided, F-it – I’ve got a couple of months – I’m going to focus on throwing away/selling/giving away just one item a day.

Sure, I would prefer the immediate gratification of having a great before and after photo over the course of the weekend, but I would also like having the gratification of keeping my anxiety and sanity in tact.

What’s your BIG to-do item that you could break down to “one item a day”? Say F-It, and take that first step today!